


Mi Dulce Niña

by GuileandGall



Series: Violaceous Fury [4]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Angst, Confirmation, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Confirmation is a rite of passage for the Guerrero family. Furia's came early so that her mother could at least one of her children reach that milestone, where she received her most cherished possession. Twelve years later at another confirmation Furia passes on her mother's cross to her sister Socorro, who Furia has a very strained relationship with since the loss of their grandparents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mi Dulce Niña

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Fill to answer two questions from a character development meme: 12. Do they sing or play any musical instruments, even if just for fun? How well?28. What is a gift that they have received that was especially touching or significant? Requested by extraordinarygirlordinaryworld. Thanks to Chy and Jae for their input.
> 
> Disclaimer: Saint's Row belongs to THQ, Volition, and Deep Silver. I'm only playing with their universe. I do not own the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. I do it for the love of the game, the world, and the characters; and because they stuck with me long after I turned the game off (and back on, and off, ad infinitum).

 

**Mi Dulce Niña**

_12\. Do they sing or play any musical instruments, even if just for fun? How well?_

_28\. What is a gift that they have received that was especially touching or significant?_

****-1-** **

* * *

The teacup shivered loudly against the cup plate, and the girl put her hand on the handle to quiet the sound. She set the cup on the bedside table then walked around to the other side of the bed and climbed up beside her mother. It was their Saturday morning ritual. The other children were down stairs watching cartoons, but Furia preferred to be upstairs. She was the oldest and better understood what was happening.

Angela smiled at her and held the blanket up to let her daughter climb under with her. Snuggling down together, she put her arm around her first born. "So tomorrow's the big day," she said quietly toying with the end of the single braid in the girls hair.

Furia nodded silently before looking up. "Mama, are you going to be there?"

Her mother smiled, and it made Furia smile. "Ah, mi dulce niña. I'm going to try, but, Soledad, it will depend on whether it is a good day."

"I hope it is a good day" Furia looked back at her hands, she was nervously picking at her nails. When she laid her head against her mother's bony shoulder, she offered up a little prayer that her mother would feel well the next day and be able to be at her confirmation.

Angela laid her hand over Furia's. "Don't do that, mija. You have such pretty hands."

"Like yours?"

Her mother laughed a little, but there was a strain in it that made Furia a little sad. Mama was not feeling well, the girl could tell, she could just feel it. The fear that her mother would not be at the church the next day grew with the realization that today was not a good day, they usually came in streaks.

"Yes, like mine, and Abuelita's," Angela said, planting a kiss on Furia's head.

She rested her cheek there, and the light humming started. Furia tried not to smile. It was a song she was intimately familiar with. Her mother had sung it to her all her life, and when the humming turned to singing, Furia joined her mother.  _A la Nanita Nana_  was a song all the Guerrero children knew and knew well. Their mother, grandmother, and older sister sang it to them often, though of the three Furia felt her voice was the weakest.

The girl saw herself as a dancer, not a singer, though she could carry a tune, but dancing was the thing she was most passionate about. The song didn't end until her mother's voice trailed off. Even then, Furia continued singing, holding onto her mother's hand and comparing her own to it.

  
****-2-** **

* * *

Ten years old was a little on the young side for confirmation Furia learned in hindsight, but her grandmother had made a special request to Father Nicholas. It was not until her younger brother's confirmation about seven years after her own that Furia realized that her confirmation had been made early so that her mother could see one of her children reach that milestone before she died. The most surprising thing had been that Angela actually made it to the church that day. She was pale, and Furia could tell she was in a great deal of pain, but her mother was there despite it all.

Her confirmation had been a special one all around. Furia was the last to be confirmed in the family church on Third Street. And hers had been the only one that her mother and maternal grandparents had been around for. Memo, who was three years younger than her was confirmed a month after their grandfather passed unexpectedly; Yayo had followed Abuelita Maria. Two weeks after her funeral they were planning another; and the family always said it was because he loved her so much that he just had to be with her.

The hand on the small of her back drew Furia out of her reverie. "Did you forget how all this works?" Memo asked, turning his head and kissing her on the cheek. He dipped his fingertips in the water and crossed himself

"Muy guapo, Memito," she replied after giving him a quick once over.

Her brother gripped the lapel of his suit coat. The black pinstripes looked good on him. He was tall and broad shouldered and the suit was well-tailored, she guessed Johnny or maybe even Julius offered him a suggestion on who to see. The purple shirt and shiny lavender tie were a bit much but she couldn't really say anything there.

"You know I hate it when you call me that."

"That's precisely why I do it," she chided with a wide grin.

Memo rolled his eyes at his older sister and shook his head. "You clean up pretty good yourself, Tati." He smiled a little wider when she cringed slightly. All of her younger siblings had called her that at one point or another, but few used it any longer.

"And no, I have not forgotten. Just … thinking," she said when she repeated the same action her brother had.

Furia wasn't sure what the rest of the day might entail for her. She had been told to stay close to her phone, so she opted for a gray pant suit. Her brother straightened his coat and set his hand on her back. The two of them were spotted before the saw their family.

"Leda!" Furia stopped, only her brothers called her that. And it had been Gabriel that started calling her that a few years earlier because he thought Soledad was too serious a name. So he just took to calling her Leda, and so did the others, all except for Socorro.

Gabriel almost knocked down a younger boy as he dashed up the aisle. He was fourteen and almost taller than his sister, who was eight years his senior, though he was significantly dwarfed in Memo's six-foot-four-inch shadow. Gabriel hugged her tightly, squeezing as hard as he could. Furia embraced him, just as tightly, and she never let go first-it had been something her grandmother told her: always be the last to let go.

When he loosened his grip and looked her straight in the eye she held his face for a moment. "You have Mama's eyes, mijito."

The compliment always made him smile, and blush just a little.

"¿Qué onda, hermanito?" Memo said, ruffling Gabriel's hair before pulling him into a quick hug.

The rest of the brothers joined the little makeshift reunion in the aisle-hugging their sister and shaking hands with the eldest of Angela Guerrero's sons. Gabriel tucked himself under Furia's arm as they walked toward the row that was brimming with relatives, while Enrique walked on her left. She laid her hand at the base of Enrique's neck as he proudly told her how his coach was damn near certain he could get a football scholarship.

"He said he's been making calls all over the state," the thickly muscled young man gushed.

Before any of the others filed into the pew Furia leaned toward her Tio Antonio and kissed his check. He merely gave her a quick wink and an encouraging nod. Memo shook their uncle's hand. Each of them knelt and crossed themselves before taking a seat. Somehow, the eldest child knew her sister was sitting alone in her assigned seat so that Socorro would not have to speak with Furia before the service.

Socorro was the reason they were there. It was her confirmation. But she, unlike most of the other teenagers undergoing the same rite, was already seated in the roped off pews. Socorro was as stubborn as her sister was determined.

Furia's hand unconsciously went to the cross she had worn around her neck for the last twelve years, since her own confirmation. When she was ten, Angela, their mother, had given Furia the cross that Abuelita Maria and Yayo had gotten her for her own confirmation. It had been a comfort in the years since she lost her mother. It still was a comfort. It was her most prized and cherished possession.

After pressing her lips to the cross for a long moment, she quickly unclasped the chain from her neck. She stood. When Gabriel moved to follow her, Memo clapped a thick hand on the scrawny boy's shoulder and pushed him back down into the pew. The older brother had seen what she did and he knew the significance of it. This was not a moment for Gabriel's giddiness.

Ignoring the ribbon barrier, Furia walked down the row behind where her sister sat with little ear buds in her ears. She considered tugging the headphones out of Socorro's ears. She might not be the best Catholic out there, or really even practice beyond the times she showed up for rites and holidays, but it still felt disrespectful.  _Almost as disrespectful as carrying a gun into the house of God?_  a voice in her head asked.

With a shake of her head, she grabbed the ends of the chain and lowered it in front of her sister. Socorro straightened a little and her body tensed. Her head turned slowly and the little white plastic speakers were removed carefully and untangled from the chain as Furia secured it around Socorro's neck. When dark brown eyes met Furia's lighter hazel ones, the older sister smiled.

"Is this Mama's?"

"Por supuesto. She would have wanted you to have it. You look beautiful. And I … we're all proud of you," Furia said, leaning on the back of the pew. She would have preferred to kiss her sister's forehead or do anything other than lean there that would have shown the young woman how much she cared. But Furia respected the distance her sister had placed between them and gripped the wooden pew tightly.

Socorro just stared at her. So after a few moments Furia straightened and walked back down the aisle. Her heart ached for her sister. Socorro was still so angry. It was an emotion Furia could sympathize with. The only difference was that the eldest child did not have the luxury to be pissed off and there was really no one left for her to be pissed at. The only people she could have been mad at were already gone. She was almost back to her seat when she heard the heels scuff the stone floor.

With tears streaming down her face and one hand clasped tightly around that family cross, Socorro stumbled and fell into the arms of her sister who sank to the floor with her. It was the first time in years, that Furia had cried, but when Socorro snaked her arm around her tightly Furia was powerless to stop the tears. She held her sister like her mother and grandmother held her when she was upset as a girl-kissing and stroking her hair, rocking her slightly, but always holding onto her tightly, tight enough that Socorro would know that there was one person in the world that would always be there to catch her.

Her voice cracked on the first line, but Furia did not care how it sounded, she just sang the lullaby softly. Her sister's beautiful voice joined hers.  _A la Nanita Nana_  was a song all the Guerrero children knew and knew well. Their mother, grandmother, and older sister sang it to them often. Furia's voice was passable, but Socorro's sounded just like their mother's.

"I … I …" Socorro tried to find words.

Furia held the young woman's face in both her hands as she shook her head. "Shh. Mijita, te amo." She kissed Socorro's forehead and the girl sobbed at the gesture. "Look at me I'm becoming Abuelita," Furia said lightly as she pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief out of the breast pocket of her jacket, which she used to dry her sister's face.

She smiled, trying for lightness. "It's a good thing you didn't wear makeup," the eldest confided, knowing that she probably looked like a hooker caught in the rain.

"Sí," Socorro said with a sheepish, almost guilty look on her face. "Lo lamento mucho, Soledad."

"All is forgiven, mi dulce niña." The endearment made Socorro hug her again, it was what their mother and grandmother called them both. "And it's like I always tell you and the boys, no matter what, I will always be here for you. I love you, all of you."

Socorro kissed her sister quickly. The two stood and hugged again. "I really am proud of you," Furia repeated.

"Te amo."

Memo held out a handkerchief and a little hand mirror to her as Furia retook her seat. She knew the mirror, it belonged to Antonio's wife Maribel.

"You're going to look like you've been in a fight for the rest of the day," he chided as he squeezed her hand.

"And I'm fine with that, Memito."

He shook his head at her. Gabriel leaned his head against her shoulder as she attempted to try to swipe away as much of the damage as possible.


End file.
